Thursday, November 4, 2010

The LPC-815 sleds and goggles arrived today. This guy made a great video showing you how to extract the diodes without harming them. Note that these are LOC (long open can) style diodes. That means the internals are not protected! Yikes. To prevent filings from getting into the diode I put some tape over the hole at the top. Then before I snap the thing open I carefully cleaned the filings away.

I was a little shocked when I finally got the diode out. It looked as if I had broken it. They really mean "long open can"! I Carefully placed the diode in the new holder and attached the wires. Negative on the top lead and positive on the left lead for this particular diode (YMMV).

The datasheet for this diode can be found here. Note that it says that 400mW is it's maximum and should only be driven this high if it's pulsed... Clearly the guys on the forums disagree. LaserPointerForums has this nice graph up. Also this thread has a good collection of the various diodes out there. This list says this diode should handle 350-420mA...

The goggles came today, both from Wicked and LaserGlow. Wicked runs a terrible operation they didn't even know the glasses had shipped and I ended up asking them to cancel the order. Now I have two safety goggles. I took the Laser Glow goggles home with me to test.

When I hooked up the new LPC-815 diode I thought I had killed it as I saw no laser light while wearing the goggles. I was expecting to see at least some dot of light. To my suprise I noticed that the laser WAS on the goggles simply blocked it fully. Tomorrow I'll try the Wicked goggles they are a lower OD rating. I would like to see the laser a little if possible.

Sadly I had forgotten my multimeter so I am not sure how much current I was putting through the diode but it's burning just fine! It went straight through the thin balsa wood! Maybe I can use the CNC cutter to make some airplanes :)